Helicopter Pilot, will travel

Controlled flight into terrain, or crashing into land that you didn’t see, until presumably that last second, or not!

I wrote a few days back about a couple of flights in low visibility situations. So why did the pilots continue to fly into bad or worsening conditions when they had safer options ? Why do we sometimes proceed down a lane with a “Dead End ” sign at its beginning? Touch the paint by the “Wet Paint” sign? Continue flight to see if we can make it?

There is never just one reason for pushing on and when you have run out of ideas, options and places to go the cockpit is a very lonely place. As you will see.

Our camp was wedged in a narrow snow filled valley on the B.C./Alaska border. Its official name was Calpine Camp and had been named that for more than a year till the 20 some wood cabins had been given a coat of new paint by order of the camp manager. Returning to Calpine with a newly overhauled Hughes 500D I climbed the steep creek drainage off the Iskut River, rounded the corner and just in front of the Glacier sat Calpine in a fresh coat of light blue paint.

“Wow! ” I laughed over the company F.M. radio frequency, “the Camp looks like Smurfville”.

The name, naturally stuck and the camp boss who never really liked me for some reason, now hated me.

Too bad.

The job at Calpine (Sm—-ville) was drilling for gold. Five drills, moved as needed around the steep sided mountains looking for and identifying the direction of the gold vein. Lots of work for about 4 or 5 helicopters. Three MD 500D’s, a Bell 47T and a Bell 205A-1. A beautiful location at the foot of a Glacier in the coastal mountains. Beautiful when you could actually see anything. In late May we were down to less than 14′ on the snow from the previous winters accumulation of 26′. Water running everywhere and when the moist, warm, coastal winds blew in from the Pacific and rolled over the glacier you had a wall of white coming down at you in as long as it takes to say,”I am out of here”.

When you are slinging equipment, core boxes, drill pipe and supplies in and around the confines of narrow creek drainages your situational awareness meter is at the top of the scale. Add some fog, a crowded radio frequency and jam it all into steep sided rock faced creeks where the helicopter that just passed going the opposite direction was a ghostly sling load, fishing its way on the opposite side of the creek. We dealt with the fog in degrees of severity. When the visibility was real low we went from a 150′ line down to a 100′ or sometimes a 50′ if the trees were not too high in the area and thats when it got interesting. No way for that many helicopters to work in close proximity. When the weather gets down like that we had parking places to sit and hover until the loaded helicopter passed by or said he did and then it was your turn to fly up to staging, pick up your load, and wind it through the trees to your destination.

When the weather got worse we hovered back into the camp and shut down one after the other. The old man in our group of pilots was an ex south Vietnam Loach pilot who had no doubt seen some low vis. in smoke and gun fire. He was always the last man to park his helicopter due to weather.

I remember the day clearly.

“Keith, did you call down and clear on your pad?”

“Yes, Tang” I answered. “Shut down and feeling my way to the cook shack “, I answered on my hand held radio.

Tang’s 500D passed overhead, the only visible clue being an orange remote hook flashing by on its way to his helipad.

“I too shut down, no shame in this weather, very bad fog” Tang added unnecessarily.

“Roger” I said. “See you in the cook house.”

The other two pilots were enjoying the warmth and seated at the same table talking when I got my wet gear off and walked into the room. The base radio blared on.

“Helllooo Smurfville, its helicopter NMO, hows your weather in camp?”

I grabbed the radio mike and transmitted the news.

“No good at all, we are all parked and it looks like its getting worse if thats possible.” There was a long gap before NMO called back and I could here the tremor in his voice.

“Well thats not good,” he continued. “I have been trying one drainage after another to get up to you guys and what ever one I am on now has closed in on me. I can see down the line to the load above this little rocky creek but thats about it.”

My stomach turned a bit and I noticed both the other pilots slid their plates away and stared at me. ” Look,”I said, “why not just find a place to set that load, punch your line on the top, and low level down creek to the river. Head back down river to a wide spot or maybe you have enough fuel to make it back to your base? Do you?” I asked, hoping. Another pause and then a shakier response.

“Well I can’t find any rock big enough to put this pallet on and I can’t see shit and my fuel low lights been on now for a few minutes. Do you think, one of you can come out here and find me?”

Unless you are a pilot you have no real idea how desperate you have to be to make that request, in that kind of weather.

I looked back at the other two pilots. One was studying the food he no longer had an appetite for, and the other just gave me an exaggerated negative nod of his head . I took a breath and Tang came over on his hand held.

“I go, be right there, you no fly around, I find you quick, no worry” Way too late on the “no worry “, I thought, as I finally breathed out.

Tang’s 500 buzzed over the cook house and down canyon . There was total radio silence for about 6 long minutes.

“You got me in sight?” was Tangs first transmission.

“Yes, got you below, by my sling load” came the shaky reply.

“You follow me. I go slow, we only a couple of minutes away.”

“Wilco” was the reply.

A few minutes later the slow flight sound of an invisible Bell 205 and Hughes 500.

Tang appeared in the cook house, loaded his tray and sat down to lunch. And where is our lost buddy we asked Tang?

“Ahh, he say he be here in a while. Have paperwork to do.” Tang winked.

Yeah, I’ll bet he does, I thought .

Dew Point. This is a measure of the moisture content of the air and is the temperature to which air must be cooled in order for dew to form. Like clouds, fog is made up of condensed water droplets which is the result of the air being cooled to the point (actually, the dew point) where it can no longer hold all of the water vapor it contains.

Boring !

Most meteorology study is dull reading until we find ourselves flying a helicopter in close proximity to the unforgiving terra firma when the above weather situation is happening.

Some stories where the temperature and dew point met, fog formed and the frightened pilots were certainly not bored.

Drizzly rain on the steep mountain side. Its cold and getting colder. The hookers on the hill have had it. It is a a tough enough job balancing yourself on a wet log where a slip and fall will put a broken branch through you, or a leg snaps between logs laying twisted below you. Add a helicopter now hovering 200′ above you and blowing a wind down in excess of anything a normal person would endure. The rotor wash is whipping the water down past your collar and the static charge if it hits your hand before the long line hook touches the log, will buckle your knees. You put the log chokers in the hook and call clear running off the end of the log. Cold dangerous work.

Its warm and cozy in the helicopter though. In fact the copilot has cranked the heat up a touch and redirected the pilots fan to help him keep the bubble window clear . The windows are not staying clear and the cut out in the bottom of the pilots bubble window is the only semi clear look the pilot has down the line to the logs he is pulling off the ground. The last log is off the ground and as the helicopter moves forward and down the pilots sees the same thing the copilot sees.

Nothing!

White below where the logs are moving at 80 mph clear of the hill for this second, hopefully. The helicopter is descending rapidly and straight down the pilot can just make out the logs that he has caught up to, and the ground below those logs.

“Lets just put these on the road and go” the pilot says.

The copilot only responds with a call to the service landing.

“Service, how is your weather?” He hopes his voice didn’t sound as shaky to them as it just did to himself. It is somehow important not to sound shit scared just before you die.

Logs tumble along the road as service answers on the radio.

“Well, like I mentioned a few minutes ago its getting pretty foggy but we can see some light straight up and the service landing is visible, all the way across.”

“Ok”, the pilot responds. “We will be hovering down the road to service and when you see the hook coming down the road give us a call” he chuckles.

The joke sounds flat and everyone knows the pilot is as scared as the copilot. The copilot is thinking what is all this “we” and “us” bullshit. I am just along for the ride and if I die with a dry crotched flight suit it will be a miracle.

The helicopter hook hits the ground and rolls a couple of feet. Not the usual smooth hook touch down into service but either is the landing a minute later. The pilot is just a tad stiff on the controls as he sets the wheels down and throttles are idled back.

“Lets not do that ever again” the copilot says.

“Roger,” comes the choked reply from the pilot.

Another story.

It has been a long day turned into night. Thirty minutes more cruising offshore back to the coast, land, paper work and its beer thirty and a shower. The wind has dropped, the G.P.S. shows a lower ground speed and it looks like you might be just nibbling on your reserve fuel as you hit your airport on the coast.

Speaking of coast, where did the lights on the coast go? It is a rhetorical question. A call to the tower confirms what you don’t want to hear.

“The airport is zero zero sir, your intentions?”

“Let me call flight service and I’ll get right back to you” the pilot replies.

A quick call to flight service confirms that an airport 9 miles further inland is clear, light winds, a fog bank 6 miles to the west and a temperature dew point spread of only 2 degrees.

One more quick call to company dispatch at the coast airport.

“Yes,” they answer,”we just went walks off here”

“I was just going to call you. What are your intentions”?

“A popular question tonight” responds the pilot. “I am proceeding to Pleasantville airport and will fuel there. I’ll call you landing Pleasantville.”

A few seconds later the familiar voice of the owner and chief pilot is on the company dispatch radio frequency.

“You know if you pick up the river where it hits the coast you can cruise in low level to the edge of the airport, hop the fence and you’re home. Its a Part 91 flight so the tower can not deny you a Special VFR clearance”, the boss continues.

” OK, I’ll try that”, says the pilot. (because I am STUPID) he thinks. A reluctant sounding tower grants a special v.f.r. clearance and the fun begins. The river is about where it should be and hovering up stream in the fog is going ok except for that pesky fuel low light. Tower is asking for a position report because he has no doubt seen few aircraft approaching at 15 m.p.h. and not visible on radar. The pilot for a millisecond thinks about reporting adjacent to the Marina and looking eye to eye with a half dozen stunned boaters dockside. He decides against it, should that in fact be his last report recorded for posterity. “Showing 2.2 miles north” comes the pilot’s terse reply. “Report the field in site ” is the towers response. Love, too thinks the pilot. but he gives an”affirmative” as his answer about the moment he thinks about that fence on the airport boundary along the river. There is a power line along that fence he remembers, and its low. He is about the right point along the river according to the G.P.S. that he can only quickly glance at. There is the fence and above that in theory, is the power line. He can almost make out the line at times and so here we go from the hover,straight up forward ,hopefully over and down slowly. the ground should be in sight and is but at a funny angle. Straighten the helicopter pull an unknown amount of torque and level just above the grass.

“Airport in sight” the pilot transmits in a high pitched tone. “In sight” comes the reply from the tower. “Cleared to hover taxi, from your present position to the ramp” Ramp not visible from the tower, land at your own risk and report down and clear”. The pilot acknowledges the quasi clearance and lands on the ramp beside Chief Pilot who stands arms folded with a big shit eating grin on his face. The chief pilot leans into the cockpit and shouts, ” Thats the way we do it”!

“Like Hell it is”, the pilot screams back. The startled Chief Pilot, shrugs his shoulders and walks dejectedly back to his office.

This guys not gonna work out here, the Chief Pilot says to himself.